Refrig-a-gator

You may have caught a glimpse of it on the TV news in January of 2019.  During a cold-snap reports showed frozen areas in the North Carolina swamps.  The smooth expanse of ice was interrupted here and there by the snout of some unfortunate alligator that somehow managed to get frozen solidly in the ice.

That caught my attention.  In school, we were taught that alligators are cold-blooded animals, right?  That means that they don’t produce any heat of their own, and have to depend on warm water or air to keep them alive.  Cold-blooded animals, I had learned, dig deep under the mud where the temperature doesn’t get below freezing so that they can survive in places where the winters get that cold.

Obviously, these ‘gators had been caught by surprise with their snouts above water and were trapped by the forming ice.  Thus ensnared, they were held firmly as they froze to death.

Poor alligators.

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In the news story I saw George Howard, General Manager at North Carolina’s The Shallotte River Swamp Park, report that every one of their resident gators was frozen in the ice.

Every one.

Dang.  Poor gators.

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It may have looked like we were witnessing a natural disaster that could take years for the alligator population to recover from, but we would be wrong.

In the same grade school science class where we learned that reptiles and amphibians are cold-blooded we were also taught that birds and mammals are warm-blooded.  Warm-blooded animals produce their own heat and many, like bison and musk ox also grow thick coats and, between the heat they produce and the fur that prevents its loss, they can survive frigid temperatures in deep snow.

Some warm-blooded animals, like squirrels and groundhogs, rather than stay out in the cold weather, find a sheltered spot and build a nest, where they sleep away the winter in a process called hibernation.

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As it turns out, the warm-blooded and cold-blooded terms are just simple-language ways to differentiate the critters.  Endothermic animals produce more of their own body heat, thus we call them warm-blooded.  The opposite, cold-blooded animals, produce less body heat and depend more on the temperature of the air, water, and land around them.  We call them ectothermic.  Endo means inside, ecto means outside. 

Get it?

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Some mammals, since they have trouble finding enough food to keep them alive through the winter, take to their protected nests, just like we cover up with quilts.  They lower their body processes, including temperature, to cut way down on their energy consumption, and basically sleep through winter.

Yep, hibernation.  Sometimes I wish I could do that.

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Reptiles and amphibians are, as I said, ectothermic, they rely more on external temperatures to keep them warm, i.e.: alive.  But they do produce some body heat.  Thus some ectothermic animals will gather in protected areas, like caves or tunnels, but they don’t build nests.  They depend on their collective body heat to keep them alive for long periods of the winter.

Yes, you’ve seen news stories of huge masses of writhing garter snakes that have been dug out by construction crews.  Or perhaps your newscaster has reported hundreds of rattlesnakes crawling out of some cave in the spring.

Other than the creep factor, including nightmares of the snakes in the pyramid scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” this is something that snakes have been doing for probably as long as there have been snakes.

But it’s not hibernation.

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It might be a fine distinction, but what they are doing is called brumation.  Where groundhogs don’t eat or drink during hibernation, animals that brumate must still drink water and may wake up for several days at a time before going back to sleep.

In the news report that caught my eye, the alligators, rather than being frozen solid, were brumating.  They can remain frozen to the surface with their snouts above the ice for a long time until, well, the ice melts.  Researchers believe the gators sensed the freezing temperatures coming and, instead of being stuck below the ice where they would drown, poke their noses up so that they can still breathe.

Being frozen in the ice doesn’t sound nearly as comfortable as my quilts, but you haven’t heard anything yet.

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Some amphibians take the whole process even further.  They can stop breathing and their hearts may even stop beating.  They might even be frozen solid all winter long.

Yes, frozen solid.  All winter.  Brrrr.

Certain insects produce a type of antifreeze that keeps them from freezing.  That explains why you can pull the bark off a dead tree in the middle of the winter and you’ll sometimes find a wriggling bug underneath.

Makes flying south for the winter, like some birds do, sound a lot less like trouble, doesn’t it?

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That’s OK, next winter I’ll crawl under my quilt and try that whole hibernation thing if you don’t mind.

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